Runway application on hold

Greater Wellington Regional Council and Wellington City Council both received a request from Wellington International Airport on Friday to pause the processing of consent applications for its $300 million runway extension.

The airport is seeking permission to add an extra 355 metres to its runway by reclaiming land in Lyall Bay.

Doing so would allow for direct long-haul flights between Wellington and Asia.

The project attracted 776 public submissions, with 525 of them against the proposal.

Airport spokesman Greg Thomas said management wanted to take a few weeks to review the feedback and check everything was in order with the application before proceeding.

“Because of the number of submissions, we want to make sure we’ve taken the time to review all those. To make sure all due diligence is done before we finalise the application.”

This was one of the last steps before the application reached the Environment Court, Thomas said.

Not sure how significant this move is, but it seems unusual.

UPDATE: Am told that is probably only a delay of a few weeks so the Airport has time to consider all the submissions and respond more fully to them.

Icarus

jms

The real reason this project should not go ahead is that there’s absolutely no business case for it. The council may as well burn a truckload of $100 notes outside the City Gallery as form of installation art.
I hope I haven’t given the council any ideas.

Huevon

Captain Mainwaring

“The airport is seeking permission to add an extra 355 metres to its runway by reclaiming land in Lyall Bay.

Doing so would allow for direct long-haul flights between Wellington and Asia.”

Absolute crap. 355 metres only makes it slightly less short, at 2400 metres. The minimum for 12 hour flights is 3000 metres.
All the enthusiasts for this pipe-dream have no idea about aircraft performance, and it’s significant that the major opponents were the airlines, who actually have to fly the things.
Hopefully this is dead and buried until there is enough potential business to extend it by 1000 metres, out to the end of Moa Point.
This can be easily achieved by bulldozing that big, barren hill into the sea, and it would also give the airport some much-needed extra land.

Maggy Wassilieff

cas

Yes they are waiting for Justin Lester to be anointed Mayor as he is for the project. Still the issue of who is going to pay for it though as Wgtn Aiport is very keen for taxpayers and the Government to pay rather than them.

alwyn

I don’t think they really care. Almost all candidates seem to be at least vaguely in favour of the proposal. I think they are just putting it off until after the election when it will go back to being full steam ahead. The problem with having it being in the news is that the ratepayers may get fired up and vote for people who really are opposed. If all is quiet I don’t think that will happen. I think that the Airport companies friends will get back if things are kept under cover for a few more weeks.

Manolo

G152

Speaking as a bit of a Saturday pilot any extension to Wellington would not cure many of the problems that that airport has.
Better to build Paraparaumu up to International standard, put in a decent rail connection direct to Wellington to handle the expected traffic and leave Wellington as a local.

Boris Piscina

I’m suspicious.

Apparently, a hitherto little known mysterious super-giant dark planet that has been lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system is about to make it’s 27-million-yearly (or 15,000-yearly on some websites) flypast of earth, causing all sorts of bad things to happen; the magnetic poles will flip, we will enter a new ice age, there will be untold earthquakes and tsunamis, mass extinctions, and shape-shifting reptilian aliens will land and resurrect the dinosaurs. Or something like that.

I reckon the airport company have got wind of all this and are keeping their powder dry till we see what effects galactic Armageddon is going to have on regional air transport demand.